Palm Beach eye doctor arrested for shooting ex-wife dead outside condo: deputies
Cynthia Sciarrone was two days shy of her 55th birthday when deputies found her dead on a Palm Beach County sidewalk in the predawn hours of July 15. She sustained a gunshot to her head, just 75 feet from the home she once shared with her ex-husband, a Martin County eye doctor who law enforcement officials are saying is the alleged killer, according to the suspect’s arrest warrant.
Around 3:30 p.m., Sciarrone was discovered after officers responded to a “man down” call from Palm Beach Fire Rescue near the 4700 block of Lucerne Lakes Boulevard in Lake Worth Beach. A Spirit Airlines flight attendant, she was still in uniform and lay feet away from her suitcase when discovered, the report reads. No evidence of a firearm was found at the scene.
Dashboard camera footage recovered later from Sciarrone’s car, a grey Subaru, shows that she was shot hours earlier, around 11:50 p.m. Officials noted the shooter, who was just outside of the camera’s view, was a man donning a baseball cap.
Detectives were quick to single out a suspect — neighbors and an initial background check revealed that she was recently divorced from ophthalmologist Richard Seith as of May 5. The 53-year-old doctor, who owns Treasure Coast Eye Specialist in Stuart, owed her $285,000 and had to cede the Lake Worth Beach condominium to Sciarrone as part of the settlement, his arrest warrant detailed.
Per one witness in the report, Seith’s distinctive orange Jeep Wrangler — which sported the words “Jack O’ Lantern” — was regularly spotted staking out the Lucerne Lakes community and was seen as recently as July 13, two days before Sciarrone’s death. Another, who said she briefly dated Seith in 2014 and befriended Sciarrone later, described their marriage as an “escalating pattern of emotional and psychologically abusive behavior which Cynthia confided about.”
Detectives began keeping tabs on Seith after a July 15 anonymous tip said he “was stalking the victim and believed to have fired gun shots at places the victim would stay,” reads the report. Search warrants placed the following day turned up mounting evidence.
Per his arrest warrant, Seith’s cellular records matched surveillance footage of his Jeep traveling from Martin County to Lucerne Lakes the day Sciarrone was killed. His phone also showed that he searched Spirit Airlines flight departure information hours earlier and purchased a tracking device subscription that he canceled three hours after she was shot.
A search of his Jeep Wrangler and eye clinic uncovered guns and gun paraphernalia in both.
Seith was booked July 18 into Palm Beach County’s Main Detention Center, where he remains and is behind held without bond.
His lawyer, Richard Barlow, says deputies are wrong for linking the divorce to Sciarrone’s death.
“The divorce case had been fully resolved and he had made all of his payments and obligations under it way before the 18th ... He wasn’t going to gain anything financially by killing her, and that’s what [detectives are] saying,” he asserted to the Miami Herald on Tuesday.
Palm Beach County court records reveal that Seith has no outstanding payment’s in his divorce settlement.
Barlow also claims the suspect’s whereabouts the night of his ex-wife’s murder do little to prove his guilt since he has a girlfriend and son that also live in Lake Worth Beach.
“Why are they writing this false stuff? Because they’re making it look like he killed her for money reasons,” said the attorney. “If you take out that whole information, they don’t really establish a motive or a reason to kill her.”
Stalking, abuse and a divorce
While Palm Beach County officers have yet to release a motive, grim details on Seith and Sciarrone’s six-year marriage could point to one.
The eye doctor allegedly demanded she “swing” with other sexual partners against her wishes and refused to pay for “medically necessary dental care” if she didn’t comply.
In 2023, when she trained as a flight attendant in Houston to seek financial independence, Seith confessed his mind would go to a “dark place” when thinking of what she did while away and admitted he considered killing his ex-wife during his first divorce, according to the warrant.
Seith’s dark musings and physically abusive tendencies led her to stay at the Stuart home of the friend and witness who claimed she dated Seith years prior. According to the warrant, the ophthalmologist was known to drive by frequently and sent repeated texts to Sciarrone and her friend laden with threats like “Great knowing you” and demands to share her whereabouts.
Sciarrone filed for divorce in January 2024 and moved to the Lake Worth Beach condo that she resided in until her death after her ex-husband kicked her out of their shared home and financially cut her off.
Barlow says Sciarrone was “quite willing” when it came to swapping spouses and that any swinging activity the couple participated in was consensual. He believes the friend Sciarrone stayed with was one of their sexual partners and claims jealousy is to blame for her disparaging witness statement.
“People’s sexual activities are quite different, but they don’t amount to criminal matters,” the attorney said. “He has an absolutely clean record. He’s a physician ... He’s not an individual that has that sort of history.”
Seith faces a charge of first-degree murder in connection with Sciarrone’s death.
